When visitors stroll into the Harlem brownstone house of Kimberly Waters and her accomplice, Steve Kirkpatrick, they will anticipate a one-of-a-kind perfume expertise curated for them.
Waters based Fashionable City Sensory Expertise (MUSE) within the brownstone of a buddy in 2017 as a luxurious fragrance vacation spot. She created the area to offer a novel expertise versus the generally much less personable one clients, and clients of coloration particularly, would possibly get in a division retailer downtown. Past perfumes, Waters is proud that MUSE has been in a position to develop right into a communal area the place folks can go away feeling extra entire.
“It’s heat and secure, and you are feeling such as you will be your self, very completely different from going into a standard brick and mortar,” Waters stated.
Waters balances her work as a pharmaceutical consultant, and working MUSE on the weekends.
Soothing music, usually R&B or jazz, will play as visitors enter the house on Edgecombe Ave. within the Dorrance Brooks Historic Group. Relying on whether or not they join the shopping session or personalised MUSE expertise, visitors can take a look at completely different fragrances, and will go away with a tote bag, and samples. Waters is proud to carry this expertise to the Harlem neighborhood.
“Lots of people who put on perfume appear to be me, however they needed to soar on a practice. They needed to go elsewhere to purchase their perfume,” Waters stated. “I needed to create an area in Harlem, the place folks didn’t have to depart their neighborhood, neighborhood to go seek for their subsequent perfume.”
By way of the sharing of perfumes and smells with purchasers, Waters says visitors can discover and discover out extra about themselves. She finds that individuals who go to will need to come again with household, and mates, as she says the MUSE expertise can be for folks to return collectively, and have a good time one another, utilizing perfume.
“I need to encourage folks to include some aspect of perfume into their way of life,” Waters stated. “I do know the ability of that.”
For patrons who go to MUSE, perfume typically turns into a connector and a bridge that opens the door for deeper conversations and connections. An older girl searching for a present for her daughter was in a position to discuss with Waters about private struggles, to which Waters was in a position to present a comforting area for her.
Waters, 44, was born in Harlem and raised in upstate New York. She says scents from her mom, grandmother, and different girls in her life all the time had an impression on her.
After graduating from Le Moyne School in Syracuse, she started a profession in healthcare prescribed drugs. Later, at age 27, after feeling stagnant in shifting up the company ladder, Waters felt the necessity to pivot and started to interact in perfume. She first created a weblog referred to as “Reminiscient” for ladies, the place she shared about fragrances that she was discovering, and her expertise at perfume commerce reveals.
“I used to be utilizing perfume to assist me determine, not solely who I’m, however who I aspire to be,” Waters stated.
Whereas Waters was financially snug, she desired to dive deeper into the perfume area, and the retail facet, particularly, and was curious what made clients select sure merchandise. She started to work freelancing as a perfume specialist for Coty magnificence merchandise at shops like Bloomingdale’s. She then moved to working for By Kilian, getting boutique expertise at Saks Fifth Avenue.
In 2017, after the corporate was bought, Waters opted to create her personal area, MUSE, which might fulfill that want she knew existed. With the backing of various connections and supporters that she made within the business, Waters started to construct it out and used her shut buddy’s family-owned brownstone on Convent Avenue. Whereas she says it has improved, she notes that the Black client has all the time made a big swath of perfume gross sales however was by no means included within the enterprise facet.
“They took our cash, however they weren’t making us part of it,” Waters stated.” I simply needed to vary that in my very own little approach, which was by way of retail.”
Navigating the entrepreneurial journey as a Black girl and creating a brand new area was not with out challenges.
“For me, who needed to carve out a special area, there was no black-owned retail vacation spot that targeted on luxurious, area of interest, and inventive perfume,” Waters stated. “I didn’t have a path on ‘how entrepreneurship works’? I needed to determine that every one out, how you can market and how you can open an LLC.”
As soon as the brownstone was bought in 2019, Waters would uncover her present area on Edgecombe Ave.
Working with distribution firms in addition to indie manufacturers to amass her stock, Waters has all the time been intentional about together with a number of Black-owned fragrances, together with Zernell Gillie and types like Coco de Mer presently. Earlier this month, she hosted a showcase with the Black Woman Fragrance Membership, highlighting fragrances rooted in Black tradition.
After eight years, Waters says she by no means imagined how MUSE would develop into what it has grow to be. With over 7,000 followers on social media, Waters says increasingly more persons are discovering and spreading the phrase concerning the distinctive MUSE expertise.
“It’s grow to be a really community-based perfume vacation spot, not only for New Yorkers, however from folks throughout.” Waters just lately had clients from Brazil who had heard concerning the firm and needed to go to.
Transferring into 2026, Waters says she is seeking to make MUSE even larger, together with a block get together and a podcast, and probably making a MUSE retreat home incorporating practices like meditation, in addition to a potential MUSE perfume down the road.
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Editor’s Be aware: This story corrects an earlier model that erroneously referred to Kimberly Waters’ accomplice, the place she based her enterprise, the neighborhood she lives in, the place she was raised, her alma mater, and her preliminary assist.
